Category: Crime

I was eight years old in the summer of 1969 when the Manson cult killed nine innocent people. It horrified me and I’d put my fingers in my ears when the story was reported on the radio.

But as my understanding of the world then came from TV shows where the bad guys would be caught and justice done, I had faith that would happen.

And they did catch the bad guys.

Justice, though, was never done.

Manson and three of his followers — others would be convicted of other murders — were found guilty in 1971 and received the death penalty. The Supreme Court, however, bizarrely ruled the next year that the death penalty as it existed was unconstitutional and commuted all death sentences to life in prison.

I really am a fan of Pope Francis but he is dead wrong on the death penalty. The world — and America — would be exponentially better off if that piece of human debris kept his date with the gas chamber 45 years ago.

James Fields Acquittal What If — James Fields Jr., the driver of the car that killed Heather Heyer during Saturday’s riots in Charlottesville, Va, may be the most hated man in America. Media outlets are calling him sans qualification a “neo Nazi” and “white supremacist”. The President, himself, has been backed into calling him a terrorist and murderer not necessarily to the joy of the prosecutors who are going to find it that much harder to find an untainted jury.

It would be the ultimate display of hipster irony if the progressives broke into the jail and hanged him from a lamppost.

Fields is charged with second degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death.

FindLaw.com says second degree murder is ordinarily defined as: 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable “heat of passion”; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life.

From the videos all of us have seen, it certainly fits but here’s a thought that will make certain heads spin: what if he’s acquitted? What if his motivation wasn’t to cause harm but to flee danger as some tweets at the time seem to indicate? If he can show this, he will be acquitted of the murder charge and probably everything else.

So hipsters, progressives and media pundits, get your torches and clubs and rope and break into that jail now if you want done what you’ve already made your minds up about must be done.

Or else just ask what Clarence Darrow would do and let a trial happen. If Fields is found guilty he’ll be punished as deserved.

Old Felons Fill Fed Prisons — For those who think America is Amerika and oppressive and repressive and mean, consider that of the 188,000 persons in federal prison, 80 percent are over 30 and about 45 percent are over 40.

In other words, those doing the hard time aren’t kids who made a stupid mistake, but calculating adults who likely have a long history of stupid mistakes.

Trump Explains Law To Judges — Donald Trump just finished (Feb. 8) a powerful and inspiring speech to the National Sheriffs’ Association. He praised law enforcement and said those involved had a friend in the White House. He warned they most hold themselves to high standards, remove the bad actors among them and be good role models.

He said youth murders were a national tragedy and that every child — even those in Detroit, Chicago and Baltimore — had a right to play outside in peace and attend school without fear, or pressure to join a gang.

He said he wasn’t joking about building the wall on the Mexican border and that it was being designed as he spoke.

Probably most significantly he took on the activist judges and pundits snarling his ban on those seeking entry from seven terrorist-controlled nations. It was about time. Thank God he has the spine. He read the law INA 212 (f) verbatim:

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.

He cracked a cracked joke about the pronoun “he” being politically incorrect and noted that what was being discussed by the pundit/legal class had nothing to do with the perfectly clear statement that he read.

He said he had planned to give a month’s, and then a week’s, notice regarding his ban but was dissuaded by his security advisors as it would have allowed terrorists planning entry to move up their timetable.

As the President implied, it is political-based decisions by judges that are causing the courts to come into disrespect, not anything he is saying.

In a side note, Chester County’s wonderful Sheriff Bunny Welsh was seen worldwide sitting next to the President, yesterday, when he met with leaders of theNational Sheriffs’ Association at the White House.

Merciful Donald Won’t Lock Her Up — Kellyanne Conway confirmed yesterday, Nov. 22, that the Trump administration won’t pursue charges relating to Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized email server and the slush fund that was camouflaged as a charity.

We approve. Trump’s priorities must be health care reform, the economy and ISIS who anyone with an ounce of sense knows is trying to sneak sleeper agents here. As more ballots were cast for Clinton than The Donald, he is wisely seeking to foster unity with a eye to addressing more critical issues.

Still, equality under the law can’t be ignored. Nobody should be above the law. This means that if the Trump Administration is not going to lock her up, they should expand the kindness to others who committed similar crimes. This means that Martha Stewart, who is a felon for lying to James “Shifting Sands” Comey, should be pardoned. This means that basically decent people like Greg Skrepenak and Chris McNair who had been taken down by trophy-hunting feds for graft exponentially milder than what the Clintons practiced should also get their lives back.

And as long as mercy is the meme, Eric Snowden should be told “all is forgiven, come on home”, and it should be let known to Julian Assange that the U.S. has no interest in pursing espionage claims against him hence he is free to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to resolve matters in Sweden.

And if, after the wall is built and ISIS beaten and the bad trade deals fixed and Obamacare is replaced and sane judges are appointed to the Supreme Court, some FBI agent or federal attorney decides to investigate the death of John Ashe, well, that would be nice.

Richard Ireland Backed Chesco Purge Attempt — Rob McCord was Pennsylvania’s treasurer when his political career ignominiously ended Jan. 30, 2015 upon pleading guilty to federal extortion charges. He is a Democrat.

Chester County businessman Richard W. Ireland is implicated as his money man. Ireland, 79, was charged in July with federal bribery charges. Ireland is a Republican.

The feds say Ireland used straw charities to shovel more than a half-million dollars to McCord starting in 2009 when McCord ran for state treasurer. This money includes contributions for McCord’s failed gubernatorial bid in 2014. In return, the feds say, McCord invested state funds with Ireland’s clients for which Ireland got a finders fee. These finders fees ultimately netted Ireland $10 million say the feds.

Wouldn’t it have been better if the $10 million stayed with the state?

Our suggestion for Tuesday has been “just vote R“. Maybe those in the 6th District should make an exception. A black eye for Chesco GOP Chairman Val DiGiorgio might keep him from being the next state party chairman.

In Delco, though we are voting straight R. We want Trump, we want Toomey and we want Alex Charlton. John Rafferty is running in the attorney general race against Josh Shaprio who is Val’s buddy which makes that an easy call.

Wells Fargo fraud department has been inundated with calls from low-income Clinton supporters reporting repeated unauthorized charges, says the Observer. The victims are those who agreed to make a one-time small donation through her official campaign website. All the unauthorized charges were less than $100 to avoid triggering the bank’s security protocol.

It’s especially ironic as Mrs. Clinton six days ago joined those seeking to hang Wells Fargo after revelations became public that the bank had created more than two million fake bank and credit card accounts.

There is no honor among thieves.

And be warned, those seeking to donate to Mrs. Clinton.

In other Democrat Party news, it has been revealed that President Barack Obama communicated in 2012—under a redacted pseudonym—with Hillary Clinton on the then Secretary of State’s insecure home email server. Obama had claimed that he hadn’t been aware of the system until media reports in 2014.

IRS Calls Entertain Senior Citizen — A certain senior citizen we know has been getting calls from a cell phone claiming to be from the IRS and saying the department was suing him.

These scammers have conned decent unsuspecting people of a lot of money and should be rotting in jail.

In the meantime, however, they have been providing a source of mirth and entertainment for our retiree.

In the initial call, he asked the scammer – who had a strong Indian accent — if he wanted to buy a duck. This confused him. When the scammer tried to get back on track our retiree asked again. Eventually, the scammer got frustrated and hung up.

But the sport was not over. The scammer had given a number to contact to resolve the lawsuit.

So, throughout the morning our retiree has been calling that number. He identifies himself as Joe Penner and asks the scammer if he wants to “buy a duck”.

Apparently, that was an in-phrase when our senior citizen was young.

The last time he tried he was put directly to voice mail.

He had fun while it lasted, though.

The Treasury Department has a web page for taking complaints for this scam. Yes, our senior citizen has filed one.

You are probably not alone if you’ve never heard of IBEW Local 98, or John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty, Jr. However, they are names that are familiar to people who follow state politics closely, or the politics of Philadelphia. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2014, IBEW Local 98 is Pennsylvania’s largest independent source of campaign cash.

According to the 2014 article, the Local 98 spent over $25 million on political races from 2000 through May, 2014. Since then, they have spent at least another $2 million. Recipients of Johnny Doc’s largess include Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty, John’s brother. The IBEW’s contributions to Justice Dougherty were over $1.5 million. Attorney General Kathleen Kane, Gov. Tom Wolf, Gov. Tom Corbett, Republican Attorney General Candidate John Rafferty, and a host of other candidates have also received contributions from the union.

“Federal authorities executed search warrants at more than half a dozen locations, including Dougherty’s house in South Philadelphia, his sister’s home next door, the Local 98 hall at 17th and Spring Garden Streets, and the Mount Laurel home of union president Brian Burrows.

“At midday at union headquarters, agents removed at least a hundred boxes of paperwork, along with several computer hard drives, loading them into a yellow Penske truck. The scene was repeated shortly after 3 p.m., as boxes, computer hard drives, and a laptop were carried from the union business office nearby.

“Seized were bank records, invoices, credit card records, and tax forms, a person familiar with the investigation said… a person familiar with the investigation said it focused on the union’s finances and its involvement in the political campaigns of Mayor Kenney and state Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty, who is Dougherty’s brother. Federal authorities are also scrutinizing Dougherty’s finances and taxes, the source said.”

A citizen reporter was quick enough to capture one of the raids on video.

It isn’t without irony that the IBEW office is emblazoned with banners extolling Hillary Clinton for President. In April, Hillary Clinton had a sit-down meeting with John Dougherty.